this post was submitted on 05 Nov 2023
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This feels like a very un-Vulcan sentiment. After all, logically, there is no way of being certain what happens to the kid when you aren't there.
Believing otherwise is based on hope/faith. Which are inherently illogical from a Vulcan standpoint.
Vulcans understand calculated risk. It would be illogical to assume certainty was possible in any situation. What would be Illogical is for Samantha to assume that she didn't have a positive impact on Naomi, and that Naomi wouldn't be loved and cared for by the Voyager crew were she to die.
It would also be illogical to focus on what she cannot control (especially in an emergency situation) Tuvok is reminding her that she's done what she can.
I'm with you, the only part of this that's based on faith is the last statement, and that's easily attributed to Tuvok recognizing that the more emotional humans tend to respond well to faith.
He's served with humans for decades, and he knows strict Vulcan mentality won't help this situation. (A lesson he continued to learn during voyager's run, despite the decades of experience under his belt)
Yeah toally, and I don't even think it's fair to say any of it based "on faith". Tuvok lays out several reasons why Naomi thriving is highly probable.
If it was TOS Spock he probably would have said something like "I predict there is a 91.47% chance your child will reach adulthood with strong emotional and physical health" (followed by a "my God, man!" from McCoy).
I think this bears repeating because a lot of people don't realize it. Tuvok is canonicially a lot older than he looks: he served under Sulu on the Excelsior! I don't think he was in active service during the entire interval between then and the Voyager era (because why would his rank be so low?), but he's been around a long time.
Vulcans use "logic" to disguise their emotional attachments frequently in the show. They claim something is logical when it's a purely emotional situation and logic doesn't really apply. Not that Tuvok personally has those tendencies.
Tuvok's character arc heavily involves him realizing that he's got to have a little bit more of an understanding of emotions in other species, since he is third in command and Voyager will be without support for years if not decades. He's showing empathy but only stating facts, his child is in a similar situation and Ensign Wildman has done a good job in raising Naomi. He knows hope is important to her ability to function in the situation and he alleviates her concerns as quickly as he can merely by pointing out the truth and explaining to her why she shouldn't fear the outcome.
He's developing his leadership skills as it pertains to other species, not just the leadership that works with Vulcans.
Top notch analysis, well done.
Tuvok is a leader and a security officer, hope is a force multiplier. He’s good at his job, both with people and systems.
He's also coming to the realization that if their trip home takes as long as predicted it's likely that he will be Captain by journey's end. First and second are adults humans in their 40's and he's got plenty of years left on him as a Vulcan. It's unlikely that Janeway or Chakotay won't be too old to really do the job in 50/60 years time.
He can't afford to just be a security officer, he needs to start thinking about command and the additional skills he must develop to become Captain in every sense. That means adjusting to the differences in the way the two jobs are concerned with personnel and mental well-being. Captain is more than just the ability to take charge in a combat situation and be successful, but the long term devotion to crew and ship on a personal/loyalty level which Tuvok doesn't display in the early seasons. He's far too pragmatic for it, additionally he distances from personal relationships which a Captain must have with their department heads.
Well, Tuvok is one of the worst Vulcans around in general. He lets his emotions get the better of him a lot, as we saw throughout Voyager, but I never saw this line as something that was 'un-Vulcan'. Then again that's probably because I've always taken this scene as Tuvok 'giving way' a little bit. He does that occasionally on the show, sort of putting on an emotional front or putting things in emotional terms, to help soothe various characters with whatever they're dealing with. Considering that she was about to die and was freaking out about her kid (which was directly putting her at further risk by raising her heart rate/breathing rate in a closed environment) I just assumed Tuvok sort of... manipulated the truth a bit to calm her down.
Granted that's just my headcanon.
I'm still working my way through VOY but even as far as I am (just watched "Tuvix") there have been many instances where he has had emotions overwhelm him. I feel like mind melding with a violent psychopath didn't do him any favours.
I would like to point out that Tuvok is not the only prominent Vulcan who has let emotions get the better of him once in a while.
I would go further and argue that Vulcans all recognize that they are inherently emotional, and strict denialism is just part of the way they build the logical society and mindset that they desire. Tuvok is honestly the first Vulcan they showed properly dealing with that, despite his attempts to blow it off by refusing to talk about it with others.
The other Vulcans we saw tended to leave it at the surface level, and then we didn't get to see the internal struggles like we did with Tuvok
I agree. I think people forget (or missed) that the Vulcans went for this logic-only lifestyle because they are such an extremely emotional race that it nearly destroyed them.
That is why they begin their emotional control/suppression/denial training basically at birth. It doesn’t come naturally to them, and as every Vulcan living among humans has pointed out to them at some point by a Vulcan living in Vulcan company: living with humans makes you an emotional mess.
Season 5, Episode 13 focuses a lot on Tuvok. Helps explain more about his character. Lemme just say that yeah, you're right. Melding with Sudur wasn't that great of an idea but definitely wasn't the cause of his problems.
Should have just nerve pinched her.
You can use logic to deduce when appearing to show emotion might be beneficial to a situation.